


Maybe This Christmas Will Be Better

by Inkedroplets



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Eventual Smut, F/F, I am Supercorp Trash, Post-Break Up, Reconciliation, Sharing Body Heat, Snowball Fight, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:21:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27975738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inkedroplets/pseuds/Inkedroplets
Summary: Lena doesn't hate Christmas, she doesn't. She just doesn't like to celebrate it, at least not anymore. Not that will stop Sam from getting her to join her for Christmas. In a bid to escape Sam's invitation and some of the bad memories associated with Christmas, Lena decides to spend the week leading up to Christmas at her cabin in a bid to get away from it all. How was she supposed to know that Kara had the same idea?
Relationships: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor, Samantha "Sam" Arias/Alex Danvers
Comments: 31
Kudos: 137





	1. It's a Cabin, Not a Lair

**Author's Note:**

> Christmas is fast approaching which means writing a Christmas AU is _absolutely_ necessary.

Lena didn’t hate Christmas, really she didn’t, she just had no desire to actually celebrate it. There was nothing she would have liked more than to keep her head down and work straight through Christmas. She had more than enough work to carry her well into the new year and it most assuredly wouldn't be the first time she had spent a major holiday cooped up in her office instead of out making merry. She might have succeeded in doing so if not for Sam making it her life’s mission to ensure that didn’t happen.

Her office had always been sparsely decorated —save for a few personal photos that were now stowed in one of the drawers of her desk with a lock— and she preferred to keep it that way. Not that it had stopped Sam from setting up a tiny Christmas tree in the corner of her office during one of the few times that Lena was actually out. Upon discovering it the next day, Lena had done a very thorough check for anything on the tree that could possibly be sentimental before tasking Jess to throw it out. Later, when Sam had come up to Lena’s office looking for a signature her gaze had passed over the spot in Lena’s office where the Christmas tree had been without saying anything and Lena had decided to do the same. 

Thinking that the matter was settled, Lena thought nothing more of it until the next morning when she had come into work and found a nearly identical tree where the first one had been, only this one was ever so slightly taller and had far more ornaments festooning it. A subtle warning of the conflict escalation that would occur if Lena threw any more trees out. Not wanting her office to turn into Santa’s Village, Lena had grudgingly waved the white flag and left the tree alone. She simply tried her best to ignore that the tree was even there in the first place. What she couldn’t ignore were Sam’s daily invitations to spend Christmas with her.

Under normal circumstances, Lena would have let Sam wear her down eventually. Spending Christmas with her and Ruby was a far sight better than going home for Christmas. Going home for Christmas meant bandying words with Lex and her mother from opposite ends of an absurdly long table while counting down the seconds until she could leave, really not all that different from any other visit except for doing so in the shade of a gigantic Christmas tree that took up a quarter of the dining hall. But it wasn’t just Sam and Ruby that she wanted Lena to spend Christmas with, it was Alex. The two of them had been dating for nearly six months and if things weren’t already serious, they surely were now that they were spending Christmas together. And if Alex was coming to visit for Christmas that most likely meant that Kara would be along for the ride and Lena couldn’t think of one person that she wanted to see less than her on any day of the year, much less on Christmas.

Kara and her had broken up last Christmas and over the phone, no less. The two had had their share of arguments but the one they had on Christmas had been the first (and last) knock-down, drag-out fight that had started with tears and ended with the two of them going their separate ways. Lena had been the one who had ended it and seeing as she had been the one to put a strain on their relationship in the first place it had seemed fitting that she was the one to pull the plug.

Lena had never put much stock in the old ‘Time Heals All Wounds’ platitude and after a year she was more than ready to present her findings and declare it bullshit of the highest order. And as tempting as it sounded to see Kara again, she was in no rush to open up old wounds that had never really healed in the first place. It hurt enough without being reminded of just what she had lost

Hearing the fast approaching sound of footsteps from outside her office, Lena turned her attention from the Christmas tree and back to the email she had opened on her computer and not yet read. Even without spying the telltale black heels as she stopped in front of Lena’s office door to rap her knuckles on it briefly, she knew it was Sam. No one was ever in a rush to get to her office besides her. _Sam and Kara_ , a voice so helpfully reminded her just as Sam burst in.

“Sure is Christmassy in here,” Sam said in a tone usually reserved for commenting on the weather. She plopped herself down on the couch near the window, eyes still glued to the tree, the lights wrapped around it blinking on and off in a pattern that Lena knew far too well for her liking.

“Yes,” Lena said, not looking up from her computer screen right away. “Completely by choice, too.” She turned her monitor off and joined Sam on the couch. “If I come in here tomorrow and find you’ve brought in an inflatable Santa I will make an example out of him.”

Sam shook her head, tutting. “I think disposing of a body is above your poor secretary’s paygrade.”

“Not with how much I pay her,” Lena replied deadpan. Lena surveyed the tree with the same careful eye she had for her work before finally rendering a verdict. “It’s nice.”

“Such a way with words.” She nodded. “I have a much nicer one back home. It’s losing needles like it’s going out of style and it took Ruby and me nearly three hours to put up and decorate but it looks nice all lit up.”

Lena could sense the sharks beginning to circle and found herself too amused with Sam’s stubbornness to be annoyed. “Maybe next year you’ll go plastic,” Lena suggested.

“I’ll have to run that up the flagpole and see if Ruby bites.” Sam shook her head and made a face. “She’s very much entrenched in the ‘real tree’ camp. Getting her to budge won’t be easy.”

“Takes after her mother.” 

Sam nodded in agreement, grinning proudly. “But if it is the last year the Arias household does have a real tree, you really should stop by and see it.”

“I will,” Lena said. “After-”

“After Christmas,” Sam interrupted, swatting Lena on the arm. “I can promise you that Christmas at my place will be infinitely better than staying shut up in your office or going back home to spend it with your family.”

“Mmm.” Lena hummed. “I don’t know if the bar could get any lower than a Luthor family Christmas, to be fair, Sam. And I might agree with you about spending Christmas in my office but someone has been nice enough to make my office, as you put it, ‘Christmassy’.”

“If it’s Alex you’re worried about…” Sam said, her voice losing some of its levity.

Alex was one of the reasons that Lena had no intent to take Sam up on her generous offer. She liked Alex. After getting to know her, the two of them had grown rather close, although that was before Lena had broken her baby sister’s heart. No matter how generous Lena knew Alex to be, she couldn’t imagine her wanting to see Lena after everything that had happened.

“It’s Alex,” Lena admitted after the silence between them had begun to shift towards uncomfortable. “And I don’t know if I can see Kara again.” She made a face as if to say ‘Are you happy now?’ and let out a beleaguered sigh. “Besides,” she added, not liking the concerned look on Sam’s face one little bit. “I already made plans,” she lied.

Sam blinked. “You made plans?”

“Yes,” Lena said, crossing her arms over her chest, returning Sam’s skeptical expression with a defiant one of her own.

“And you decided this when? Because I’ve been asking you to come round for Christmas for a week now.”

“Yes, I vaguely recall you asking me, day in day out without respite.” Lena smiled and felt the makings of a plan begin to stitch itself into being. For all Lena knew, it had been there simmering back in the recesses of her mind, waiting to be brought to the forefront. A lot of her ideas come to her like that. Not perfect and far from fully formed but with enough substance for her to get started. “I decided today, actually,” Lena said. _Just now, as a matter of fact_.

“I thought I would head up to Mt. Norquay for a little R&R.”

“A Luthor family Christmas in the books?” Sam asked, treading carefully as she always did when it came to Lena’s family.

“God, no. My mother hasn’t been able to stomach the cold for years and she and Lex are getting together at the manor like they always do, which makes the idea of putting a little more distance between me and them even more appealing.” Lena would much prefer putting an ocean or two between them as a buffer but she would settle for a mountain or two. “And, I still don’t think that my mother even knows I bought a cabin there.”

Lena’s mother had an uncanny ability for learning things that Lena would much rather keep from her but Lena thought—hoped—that particular purchase still remained secret. She had bought the cabin on a whim although not her own. Kara had wanted to go on a snowy retreat and instead of finding some four-star hotel in Aspen that they could spend a week or two at, Lena had bought a cabin for the both of them. It had seemed a perfectly reasonable purchase at the time and it would have been if they had gotten a chance to use it. They had broken up right before their trip and the cabin had joined the long list of property and assets that Lena owned but didn’t actually touch.

She should sell it. Not to make anything resembling a profit. She had paid top dollar to expedite the sale and even with it being a seller’s market she wouldn’t come close to recouping what she paid for it but getting rid of the place would be like flicking off another switch in the fusebox that was her and Kara’s relationship. It had ended and it was probably for the best if she stopped holding onto what had remained. 

“If you’re trying to sell me on being okay with you going to a cabin that nobody knows the location of to spend Christmas all by yourself, you’re not doing a fantastic job, Lena,” Sam said, interrupting Lena’s thoughts. She shook her head and breathed out heavily through her nose.

“It’s a cabin, Sam, not a secret lair.” Lena patted her arm consolingly. “I’ve spent plenty of Christmases alone and with how busy we’ve been this month, I could really use a vacation and I know that you like me way too much to force me to be your third wheel on Christmas. That’s just cruel.”

“You wouldn’t be a third wheel…” Sam looked ready to argue but it appeared that some of the wind had been taken out of her sails. She would have never set out to make Lena the third wheel but few ever did. It was something that happened when no one was looking except the one it was happening to.

“It’s your first Christmas together,” Lena said, knowing that Sam didn’t need the reminder but giving it to her anyway. “Do it right.” _Like I should have_.

Sam sighed and Lena knew that she had won if you could call weaseling out of spending Christmas with Sam winning. “Anytime you change your mind, Lena, and I mean that you’re more than welcome to come by and if I inadvertently make you the third wheel you can tell Alex an embarrassing story about me.”

“Oh, I always planned on doing that,” Lena teased. “But I’ll keep that in mind. I really do appreciate you inviting me.”

“You’d just rather spend your Christmas on some inhospitable mountain than in my cozy apartment.” She nodded sagely. “I totally get it.”

“I’m going to Canada, Sam, I’m not spending Christmas on Mt. Everest.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Sam stood up and peered at the calendar on Lena’s desk. “When are you leaving?”

“I guess, tonight.” Lena shrugged. Tonight was as good a time as any seeing as L-Corp would be officially closed for the holidays from tomorrow. She was an expert at flying on little to no notice beforehand and it wouldn’t take her all that long to get a bag around. 

"Tonight?" 

Lena nodded. “I’m sure that I can get a flight out tonight.” Even with it so close to Christmas there was almost always a seat, especially in first-class and if even that was unavailable, Lena could always talk (or buy) her way into the jumpseat on a plane, it wouldn’t have been the first time and it definitely wouldn’t have been the last.

Sam looked far from thrilled about Lena’s decision but had seemed to have made her peace with it because she raised one hand as if in surrender, reached out, and took Lena’s hand, their fingers interlacing. “They have reception up at that cabin?”

“It’s the twenty-first century, Sam. I’m sure that I’ll have a cell signal.” Lena patted Sam’s arm consolingly.

* * *

True to her word, Lena found a flight without even having to put any feelers out. The mass Christmas exodus wouldn’t officially begin for a few more days and besides a few middle-aged salarymen, first class was nearly completely deserted which suited Lena just fine. The last thing she needed was someone trying to make small talk next to her while she tried to make the most of the flight and dive as deeply into her work as she could before the plane landed.

She had used the time to take a half-hearted stab at making leeway on a proposal that she was going to present to the board in January and throwing together a rudimentary list of things she would need during her week in solitude, nowhere on it did she find room for a Christmas tree, real or plastic.

The first thing she realized upon stepping out of her rental car at the foot of the path that led towards the cabin was how cold the air was. Even with her down jacket zipped up clear to her chin, she felt the wind nipping at her as she stood there looking up at the slightly hazy outline of the cabin in the distance. From where she was standing it looked to be perched rather precariously high up, looking almost… _Inhospitable_. Grimacing, Lena tightened her grip on the one suitcase she had packed, wishing she had packed a bit lighter before setting off up the path under a cloudy sky with very little moonlight to light her way. There were several trail markers that made it nearly impossible to actually lose the trail but as a particularly strong gust of wind lashed against her cheek, she suppressed a shudder that had nothing to do with the cold. _I knew I should have just stayed in my office._

After nearly twenty minutes of walking through ever-deepening snow, dragging a piece of luggage that was beginning to feel like it was attached to her hand like a ball and chain she finally laid eyes on the cabin. It was a two-story A-Frame that looked as if it had sprung out from under the snow like an overly tenacious sprout. The stairs leading up to the deck were completely covered in snow that Lena plowed through as best she could, her feet feeling like they had frozen solid in their boots.

She imagined pulling up a chair to the fireplace and lounging there until she had properly defrosted while she dug around in her pocket for the key to the cabin. It took her two tries to ease the key into the lock and a few precious seconds to actually get the key to turn in the lock so that she could throw open the door.

Instead of a roaring fire, Lena was greeted by pitch darkness. She fumbled for a switch on the wall, flicked it a few times, and cursed under her breath as she thrust her hand into her jacket pocket to grab her phone to use it as a flashlight. Had she been expecting the cabin to be in working order after all this time? She had come up to the cabin just the one time to get it ready for Kara and had just finished putting the finishing touches on everything before their big blowup and she had then been tasked with taking down all the decorations she had just put up and winterizing the cabin before putting it in the rearview which made it all the more ridiculous that she had chosen here of all places to spend Christmas.

 _The fuse box was around here…_ She had shuffled like a mummy past the fireplace towards the back of the cabin where the kitchen was, very nearly catching her hip on the corner of one of the counters as she did so. Holding her phone out in front of her she spied the fuse box, praying that there would in fact be light, and flicked the main breaker. She let out a little cry of relief when the light nearest to the door flickered on and went around the rest of the cabin turning on lights the way she had done once when she was younger and stayed up late watching horror movies when everyone had been out. She had been too scared to sleep and had instead spent the remainder of the night with every light on in the manor while she tried to distract herself by reading.

Once all the lights were on and Lena had kicked off her boots, she turned her attention to the non-existent fire crackling merrily in the fireplace. Thankfully the firewood rack next to the fireplace was mostly full which meant the only thing she had to worry about (at least tonight) was getting a fire going. She clumsily stacked a few pieces of firewood on the grate, working slower than she normally would have thanks to how cold her hands were. The last thing she wanted to do tonight was to pinch her finger as a way to round out the night. _Why, oh why, did I think buying a cabin with an actual fireplace instead of an electric one was a good idea?_ she asked herself as she balled up newspaper to stick between the logs. _Because you thought it was more romantic_ , another voice answered.

Lena rolled her eyes, taking a fireplace match from the box on top of the mantel, struck it, and shoved it between the kindling and the newspaper. She watched the flame blossom and begin to spread before she removed the match from the fireplace, shook it out, and laid down where on the floor still wrapped up in her parka, exhausted. She was tired but far too cold to get any sleep. Once the cabin had warmed up a bit she would trudge up the narrow staircase to the second floor to the loft and pass out until morning. She rubbed her hands together and groped for her phone on the floor beside her. Sam had wanted her to call once she had arrived and she would have if getting to the cabin hadn't been such a debacle. She would send a text instead and fill Sam in tomorrow at a more reasonable hour.

She typed a quick message and gave it a quick once-over, grinning to herself in spite of the cold.

_Arrived. Not dead. Fire successfully made. Tomorrow I start inventing the wheel._

She had her thumb poised to hit send when she realized that her phone had no signal.

"For fuck's sake," she groaned. Was it Murphy's Law that stated: Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong? Lena was almost certain it was although she didn't much care what it was called, she was more worried that the lights might go out or that there was a buildup of soot in the flue and the whole cabin would catch fire. At least I would be a bit warmer before I had to traipse down the mountain to my car, she thought, surprised at how much that rather grim thought seemed to cheer her up.  
  
It really shouldn't have surprised her that there was no reception considering how hard the snow was coming down. Come morning, Lena was sure that it would be cleared up by then and she would be able to send Sam an 'arrived safe' text or call her and regale her with the tale of her harrowing journey to the cabin and close out with her successfully getting a fire started. Or maybe when she got back to National City she would. She didn't want Sam to worry, and knowing her she was already doing that. It was Sam just being Sam but Lena thought she had far more important things to worry about, like making her and Alex's first Christmas together a special one.  
  
That thought brought with it a painful memory that Lena forcefully returned to a back shelf in her mind and closed her eyes, trying to focus on the sound of the wind lashing harshly against the cabin.

Lena opened her eyes and was seized with one inescapable truth: She was burning up. She had drifted off and had been asleep long enough for the fire to heat the cabin quite nicely. She tugged at her coat with clumsy hands and fanned herself, scooting back from the fire a ways. Yawning, she tossed her coat onto the floor. She tossed another log on the fire and stood up on very shaky legs. She glanced over at her suitcase still propped up by the door and debated rummaging around in it for her pajamas or simply shuffling off to bed while shedding her clothes as she went like a snake, taking full advantage of the privacy the cabin offered. The latter won out and Lena worked her sweater up and over her head, tossing it onto the floor next to her coat. She had just reached behind her to unhook her bra when she heard what sounded to her like the sound of boots from outside.  
  
Too sleepy to immediately shift into high alert, Lena concentrated, trying to block out the sound of the wind and isolate the sound she _thought_ she heard. She heard nothing for a moment before there was an even louder crunch of snow from outside and the unmistakable sound of footfalls approaching. Panic coursed through her like an electric current and she bent down to scoop her sweater up off the floor before changing her mind and grabbing a particularly club-like bit of firewood that was waiting to be burned.  
  
If _this is payback for having Jess throw that Christmas tree in the trash, it seems disproportionate._  
  
Lena watched with mounting horror as the doorknob turned left and then right before she heard the scrape of a key sliding into the lock. Instead of retreating, Lena took a step closer to the door, the piece of firewood raised high over her head, ready to bring it down on the head of whoever walked through the door. She choked up on it like a bat and felt a blast of frigid air send goose pimples racing along her body as the door blew open with the force of the wind.  
  
She locked eyes with the stranger who looked to be wearing a balaclava, felt a rush of adrenaline nudge her firmly into the 'fight' response, poised to strike when the stranger let out a scream that Lena found achingly familiar.  
  
The stranger's hands shot up and they took a step back into the snow. "Don't hit me, Lena, it's me!" They gave the snow-covered wrap around their face a tug and pulled it away to reveal it was just a scarf and not a balaclava. A mess of blonde hair came spilling forth and Lena found herself staring back at the bluest eyes she had ever seen.  
  
"Kara..."


	2. Sweet Christmas

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _You don't have to be alone to be lonesome  
>  It's easy to forget  
> The sadness comes crashin' like a brick through the window  
> And it's Christmas so no one can fix it_  
> -Phoebe Bridgers 'Christmas Song'

The bit of firewood that Lena had in a death grip nearly slipped from her hand and she hastily set it down at her feet with a dull clunking noise. Another frigid gust of wind blowing in through the still-open door sent her hastily backtracking deeper into the cabin nearly tripping on her freshly discarded sweater…Blushing, she bent low to tweeze it between her thumb and index finger before hastily throwing it on over her head.   
  
“Thought you were a.. a..” Lena said, searching for just what thing her imagination had cooked up. “An ax murderer,” she said, her voice slightly muffled as she popped her head out from inside the sweater. She locked eyes with Kara who had stepped inside, shaking snow out of her hair as she shut the door behind her. The panic that had jumped into Kara’s face from nearly getting clubbed with a piece of firewood had begun to ebb and Lena saw a coldness settling in that likely had nothing to do with the snow.    
  
_ Maybe an ax murderer would have been better…  _ _  
_ _  
_ “I wouldn’t worry too much. If there is one lurking around out there he’s probably frozen solid, ” Kara snarked. She set the heavy bag she had slung over her shoulder down with a thump and extricated herself from her boots with some difficulty. Shaking a few stubborn snowflakes from her hair she made a beeline for the fire and stood before it, holding out her hands and doing a little dance that Lena sometimes saw Kara do when she came back from a business trip abroad with pastries.    
  
“Kara… What are you doing here?”   
  
“Defrosting.” Kara rubbed her hands together and shivered a little, inching ever closer to the fire. “I meant to get here in the afternoon but somebody’s car went off the road and it took a while to get their car out.”   
  
“And you just had to stop..” Lena grinned despite how out of sorts she felt upon seeing Kara after a year of only seeing her in photographs. “That sounds like you…” Her grin fell away when Kara turned around and Lena saw the firm line that Kara’s mouth was set in.    
  
“I didn’t know you would be up here,” Kara said apologetically. “If I did…” She trailed off not needing to finish that sentence when Lena thought she was more than capable of filling in the blank. Kara rummaged around in her pocket and pulled out a key that she held out in her open palm. “You said that I could come up here whenever I wanted,” she reminded Lena.   
  
Lena remembered. The key to the cabin had gone in the small box that Lena had tasked Alex with delivering to Kara a few weeks after their breakup. There had been a letter that had gone with it that Lena had thrown away at the last minute and replaced with a much shorter epigraph that Lena had scrawled at her desk.  _ Thank you for the memories. The cabin is as much yours as it is mine. Go up whenever you like.  _   
  
“I was sure that you would have sold the place by now though and when I saw the lights on I thought that you really might have. If Sam didn’t swear up and down that you didn’t....”   
  
“Sam?” Lena’s voice came out an octave higher than usual and she hastily cleared her throat. “You talked to Sam?”   
  
Kara nodded slowly. “I called her to tell her that I wasn’t going to be around for Christmas and I told her that I was thinking of spending it at the cabin but I wasn’t sure if you had sold it. Sam assured me you hadn’t. She’s the one who insisted-”   
  
_ I’m going to kill you, Sam. _ _  
_ _  
_ -"that I come up here if I wanted to in her own honeyed words ‘be a Grinch for Christmas’.” 

_ You, a Grinch?  _ Lena wondered.  _ The woman who put up our tree the day after Halloween?  _

Kara let out a sigh that sounded like she had been holding in a long time and pinched the bridge of her nose, pushing her glasses up a bit as she did. “Lena…”   
  
“Yes?”    
  
“I’m a lot more tired than I thought I would be. I guess almost freezing to death on the way here has that effect. Do you mind if we talk tomorrow?”   
  
Lena didn’t mind at all. She was never one to procrastinate but in this particular case, she would gladly postpone as long as possible. Leave that business for next year or the year after that if the fates allow. She had come to terms with running into Kara again  _ someday.  _ Sam and Alex’s relationship had progressed too much for her not to but not now, and definitely not here…   
  
“Bathroom is there.” Lena pointed to the room closest to the front door. “And you can sleep….”   
  
_ Fuck _

The second floor of the cabin was a very cozy loft that had just enough room for a small bedside table, a couple of vintage lamps, and a King size bed that had seemed perfect when she and Kara had been dating… Now it was just another reminder of how life could (and did) turn on a dime. 

“Upstairs,” Lena said, feeling herself start to turn red.    
  
“Upstairs,” Kara repeated. She slipped past Lena and unzipped her bag. She rummaged around inside it and pulled out a toiletry bag and a pair of floral pajamas that Lena still remembered fondly. She clutched both of them close to her chest as she walked to the bathroom. Kara had her hand on the knob when she turned back to look at Lena, her mouth curved upward ever so slightly. “The cabin really is beautiful.”Before Lena had a chance to respond, Kara opened the door, slipped inside, and closed it behind her again.

* * *

  
  
The bedroom on the first floor was always meant for company and if Lena had actually got around to using it she would have replaced the single bed with a double. She wasn’t tall enough that her feet would actually hang over the edge but up close it even  _ looked  _ small. Sliding into it after changing into her flannel pajamas made her long for the California King bed back home.    
  
She pulled the blankets up to her chin and took a series of deep breaths that did nothing to steady her nerves. She heard the bathroom door open again and a few moments later, Kara’s footfalls going steadily up the stairs before the faintest squeak of bedsprings. 

The living room had been just short of sweltering but the guest room still had a chill that sent Lena burrowing even deeper into her blankets. As she stared up at the ceiling, letting her eyes get adjusted to the dark, she groped for her phone on the nightstand. She tapped the screen once and winced at the sudden flood of light, looking just long enough to see the blinking so signal icon in the top right corner of the screen.    
  
_ If I had a signal,  _ she thought. For a mind that had always rebelled at stagnation, Lena had already come up with a dozen ways to pay Sam back for her role in this… This debacle. A re-appearing Christmas tree in her office was one thing but finagling her and Kara’s holiday plans so that their paths crossed, was a step too far. “Damn you, Sam,” Lena breathed, pulling the blanket over her face and letting out a breath that sent the blanket chuffing upward before falling back down onto her face.    
  


* * *

In her haste to get to the cabin, Lena hadn’t had the foresight to stop and do some shopping before coming up to the cabin. Not that she would have had an easy time of carrying it either. Opening and closing every cupboard and pantry in the admittedly small kitchen she was relieved to find some instant coffee crammed in the back of the freezer. Taking a sniff she thought that it would at the very least work as a coffee substitute.   
  
Lena was halfway through her second cup when Kara came padding into the kitchen with the most serious case of bedhead that Lena had ever seen. She took one more hasty gulp, surprised at just how quickly it had begun to cool before she set the mug down in front of her.    
  
“Morning,” Lena said tentatively. She made no mention of Kara’s bedhead or that the top button of her pajamas was undone, nor did she try and force any of the usual morning chatter that was usually customary:  _ How did you sleep? Did you get cold in the night? Do you hate me?  _ All the classics.    
  
“Morning.” Kara shuffled over to the one blob of sunlight on the floor, stood in it, and looked around the kitchen as if she were perched atop a crow’s nest. She spied one of the cupboards that Lena hadn’t bothered to close and let out a little sigh of disappointment. “I would kill for some tea,” she said wistfully.    
  
“Cabin fever setting in already?’ Lena flashed Kara a brief smile, pushed her cup aside, and slid a teabag across the table closer to Kara with her index finger. “It’s old,” she warned. “But the coffee is too and it tastes…” She made a groaning noise. “Not  _ fine…  _ Potable” She shrugged and pointed to the kettle on the counter.    
  
Kara picked up the teabag, turned it over in her hand, tapping it against the palm. She looked out the frost-covered window over the sink, over Lena’s shoulder. “You bought this-”   
  
“Last year,” Lena answered.    
  
Kara nodded and dropped the tea bag into the waiting mug beside the kettle. She poured a healthy splash of steaming water into the mug, dunked the bag a few times, and shuffled over to the empty chair at the table, clutching the mug.    
  
“Not bad,” Kara said after taking her first sip. “Potable,” she said, smirking a little as she did so.   
“But I might be a little biased, it is my favorite tea, after all.”   
  
_ I know. _

Lena gestured behind her without looking. “The cupboards are bare, obviously. I was going to make a grocery run after I got some coffee in me. If you wanted to make a list I could grab whatever you needed. How long were you planning on staying?”   
  
“I actually made a list before I left.” Kara pointed to where her bag still sat beside the front door. “Just have to dig it out. And I was planning on staying through Christmas, at least.” From the look on Kara’s face, even she looked unsure of just how long she would be staying. “I don’t go back to work until after the New Year and I wanted to give Alex and Sam some space. How long are you staying?”   
  
_ No clue,  _ Lena thought. She had spent a good portion of the night planning her departure while she listened to the wind bluster against the cabin. She reasoned that at least one of them should be able to enjoy their Christmas and she couldn’t see that happening if they spent it together under the same roof. “I’m not sure,” she said cautiously.    
  
“Lena… If you want me to leave,” Kara said, her expression suddenly hardening. “I can go. It’s your place, after all…”   
  
“You want me to throw you out into the cold right before Christmas?” Lena snarked. “I already have enough people at L-Corp calling me Scrooge behind my back. I don’t need to give them any more ammo.” That was enough to coax an unwilling smile out of Kara that she obscured with her mug, holding it there making the smile all the more conspicuous.    
  
“In any case, your name is on the deed too, Kara. I couldn’t throw you out if I wanted to.”    
  
“Wait. What?” Kara set her mug down with a clatter looking confused. “What do you mean my name is on the deed?”   
  
Lena felt her face growing warmer and she batted her hand in front of her in an airy sort of gesture. “When I bought the place, I put your name on the deed. I thought that I told you,” she said, furrowing her brow.  _ You did,  _ a voice reminded her.  _ In the letter that you were going to give her along with the key to the cabin before you ran it through the shredder in your office....”  _   
  
“No,” Kara said, sounding punch drunk. “You  _ definitely  _ didn’t tell me that…” She stood up from the table, her chair scraping against the floor. She flashed Lena a very forced smile that fell away almost at once. “I’m going to go dig up that grocery list before I forget,” she said, already on her way out of the room.    
  
_ Congratulations, Lena. Somehow you made things more awkward than they were before.  _ _  
_

* * *

  
  
The trip down the mountain was not that much easier than going up it. Last night’s snowfall had been blown into dune-like snowdrifts that Lena found herself having to wade through or walk around and with the path as narrow as it was, it left her with very little choice but to cut a path through the snow while she swore floridly, taking advantage of the solitude and yelling loud enough so her voice echoed back to her as she cut a path back down the mountain.    
  


It wasn't until Lena was pulling into the parking lot of the small grocery store that she had passed on the way up to the cabin that she realized she had forgotten Kara’s grocery list. Lena had erased Kara’s number from her phone not long after their breakup but she still knew the number by heart, how could she not? She dialed and was greeted with a busy signal. She tried twice more and was greeted with the same. Laying her head on the steering wheel she weighed her options and saw herself not only traipsing back up that snow-covered path but going back down it and shuddered.  _ If we were still dating,  _ Lena reasoned,  _ I'd go back in a heartbeat but now? _

Calling her was out of the question

Lena killed the engine, pocketed the keys, and grabbed her phone off of the passenger's seat, pausing just long enough to lock the doors before she stepped out of the car and closed the door with a bump of her hip.

While she snagged a cart from the cart return near the front of the store, she tapped Sam’s name in her address book and dialed, pinning the phone between her shoulder and her ear as she pushed the cart one-handed. It rang only once before she heard Sam pick up on the other end.

"Do you secretly hate me?" 

_ "What gave me away? You didn’t find my secret journal, did you? I’ve been trying to call you. I was getting worried.” _   
  
Pushing her shopping cart past a gaudy Christmas tree display, Lena spotted the paper towels she was looking for and pushed a pack into her cart without stopping. “It was snowing pretty hard last night, I didn’t have a signal and you’re lucky that I didn’t,” she growled.    
  


“What did I do?” Sam asked and Lena could almost see the wide-eyed expression that had to accompany such an egregious lie.    
  
“Kara’s here,” Lena said savagely, nearly dropping her phone when she reached for a bag of frozen potstickers, tossing them into the cart. “And if you pretend to act shocked to hear that I’m going to drive all the way back to National City, grab that tree out of my office and shove it right up-”   
  
_ “It was Kara’s idea to go up to the cabin. I just told her that you hadn’t sold it yet and since she was so dead set against celebrating it with Alex and me, I told her that the cabin might be the perfect place for her to go.” _

“It must have just slipped your mind that I was going up there,” Lena said. She felt her cart listing to one side, gave it a yank, overcorrected, and nearly plowed into someone else’s cart as they passed. “Sorry,” she muttered.   
  
“ _ No, it didn’t slip my mind,”  _ Sam said baldly.    
  
Robbed of her aha moment, Lena found herself spinning her wheels while she tried to remember what Kara had written on her shopping list and be angry at Sam at the same time. “Then what the hell were you thinking?” Lena moaned. “You weren’t thinking,” she snapped, answering her own question before giving Sam a chance to.

_ “Maybe not my brightest of ideas,”  _ Sam said agreeably.    
  
“No,” Lena said flatly. “You’ll get no argument from me about that.” She spied a number of canned soups that Lena thought would do in a pinch and plucked a few from the shelf with her free hand and deposited them into the cart. “Maybe if you and Alex weren’t so lovey-dovey with one another, Kara wouldn’t have been so averse to spending it with you two.”    
  
Sam laughed.  _ Pot meet kettle,”  _ she said and Lena recognized the silence that followed that as loaded. Yes, Kara and she had been guilty of the same crime. They were in retrospect very affectionate with one another when out with their friends but they had been in private as well. Lena distinctly remembered the word ‘insufferable’ thrown around a lot. She also remembered Alex making copious retching sounds that did have the desired effect in separating her and Kara but only because it always made Lena laugh so much.   
  
_ “And,”  _ Sam said, yanking Lena off her stroll back down memory lane,  _ “I don’t think that’s why Kara didn’t want to spend Christmas here, although our PDA may have played a small factor.”  _   
  
“Maybe you shouldn’t have called her a Grinch,” Lena retorted, half-joking but still somewhat nettled all the same.   
  
_ “No,”  _ Sam agreed _. “I shouldn’t have. I’ll apologize to her when she gets back. But if you want to tell her sorry for me before then, I’d appreciate it.”  _ _  
_ _  
_ “Right before I head home then.”   
  
_ “Lena…”  _ _  
_ _  
_ “There’s no reason that we both have lousy Christmases. Kara came up to the cabin to relax and I should have never left my office.” Lena bit back a sigh and pushed her cart down another aisle. She had been mulling an escape since the night before and watching Kara beat a hasty retreat after Lena put her foot in her mouth had been all the motivation she needed to pull the trigger.

_ “And why do you think she was having such a lousy Christmas, Lena?” _ _  
_ _  
_ The answer to that seemed obvious enough to Lena and she shook her head as she grabbed a bag of chips. “Maybe because she was half-frozen when she finally got to the cabin or maybe because I nearly took a swing at her with a piece of firewood when she walked in the door.”   
  
_ “What?!”  _ _  
_ _  
_ “It’s for the best,” Lena said, speaking more to herself than Sam. “I need to do a little more shopping but if I can leave before it gets too late I should be able to catch a flight home on a redeye.”    
  
_ “Is that really what you want, Lena?”  _ Sam asked, sounding like she had much more to say but had come to terms with the fact that it wouldn’t change much if anything.   


“It’s not,” Lena admitted candidly. She pressed a finger against her temple, feeling the makings of a headache coming on.   
  
_ “Then stay, you dork. I have to go. Ruby had the mixer running in the kitchen and she got very quiet all of a sudden which is never a good thing. Whatever you do Lena, text me later, okay?”  _ _  
_ _  
_ “If the weather allows. Have fun, Sam.”   
  
_ “It would be impossible not to. Unless Ruby just made a huge mess in the kitchen. I love you, you know?”  _ _  
_ _  
_ “Yeah? You have a funny way of showing it sometimes,” Lena snarked.   
  
_ “You should see how I show Alex…” _ _  
_ _  
_ “Hanging up now,” Lena warned before ending the call, stowing her phone back in the pocket of her jacket before turning down another aisle.

Her anger at Sam that Lena had so carefully tended to the night before had all but vanished during their brief phone conversation and all that Lena was left with as she finished up the shopping was the age-old question so expertly posed by The Clash: Should I stay or should I go?

* * *

  
  
Leaving the grocery store with a loaded-down shopping cart had seemed like such a good idea on the way out of the store. Lena did however have a change of heart when she found herself trudging back up the path to the cabin with her arms weighed down with grocery bags. It was somewhat easier walking through the trails in the snow she had made all the way down but that only marginally.   
  
_ There are still bags in the car,  _ a voice reminded her ever so helpfully just as the path began to flatten out and Lena caught sight of the cabin. She watched as a plume of smoke chuffed merrily out of the chimney and thought longingly of once again sitting up close to the fire. After last night’s storm, the sky was nearly completely cloudless and while the sun offered very little warmth Lena welcomed it all the same. The tranquil silence that came with such a place was the one thing Lena had been looking forward to but as she climbed higher up on the path she could hear the quaint stillness broken by a sound that Lena pinpointed after a minute. It was the sound of someone chopping wood.    
  
_ Maybe that ax murderer is getting a few practice swings in,  _ she thought and with how exhausted Lena was already and knowing that she would have to take at least two more trips back down to the car to get everything she bought, she wasn’t so sure that would have been a bad thing.    
  
Cresting the hill, Lena spied the source of the noise and nearly dropped the bags she had balanced precariously in her arms. Kara was chopping firewood. Lena hadn’t even bothered to check the woodpile on the side of the cabin to make sure that they would have enough firewood to keep them from freezing but judging from the large pile of logs beside Kara they wouldn’t need to worry about that. Not that there weren’t other pressing matters that Lena had to fret over, like whether or not she was going to actually stay or make a break for National City and not look back or just why Kara was chopping wood with her jacket off…   
  
It was tempting to simply pretend Lena hadn’t noticed Kara at all and simply head straight for the cabin like her arms were begging her to but instead, she came to a stop a few feet away, setting one of the bags as gently as she could down beside her in the snow. “Are you  _ trying  _ to catch a cold?”    
  
“Trying not to freeze,” Kara said, not looking up as she brought the ax squarely down onto another log, splitting it into a manageable size. “There’s plenty of wood,” she said and pointed towards the back of the cabin. “But it’s too big to actually fit in the fireplace so…” She bent down to grab another piece of wood and paused halfway. “Is that really all you bought?”    
  
“There’s more down in the car,” Lena said testily. “I couldn’t carry it all. Maybe  _ you  _ could have.” She felt herself start to blush and hoped that Kara would merely chalk it up to the cold. Glancing over Kara’s shoulder as if she saw something there worth looking at she pointed to Kara’s jacket which she had draped over a particularly large log. “You should really put that on.”    
“I  _ just  _ took it off,” Kara said.   
  
_ Just my luck… _ _  
_ _  
_ “I was starting to sweat and I wasn’t sure how long I was going to be out here but I think that should be enough to last us for at least a few days.” She pointed to the sizable pile next to her, brow furrowed as she muttered to herself. “Not really an expert,” she said trailing off and flashed Lena a sheepish grin. “Maybe one more…” She held up a finger and picked up another log.    
  


“Workaholic,” Lena muttered, not meaning for it to be a barb but realizing from the look on Kara’s face that she took it as one. It was the same thing that Kara had accused Lena of being and even on the days she felt most combative Lena had never been able to mount a defense against the accusation. She  _ was  _ a workaholic or at least nowadays a recovering one. Incidentally, she was coming up on her one-year anniversary…   
  
“I didn’t mean—”   


“I know what you meant,” Kara said. What little warmth that had found its way into her voice had vanished and her attention was now wholly focused on the log in front of her. She brought the ax down and while a long crack ran down its length the log remained whole. Swearing under her breath, Kara wiggled the ax first left and then right before she pulled it free. Lena watched her wipe at her brow, leaning the ax against the cabin before picking up the log and—   
  
_ Sweet Christmas,  _ Lena thought her face going straight from pink to beet red.    


—ripping it clean in two. It was clear from the zigzagging crack running down it that the ax had done the brunt of the work but that hadn’t diminished Lena’s reaction to seeing Kara rip a log in half.  _ That  _ image would stick with her for a while.    
  
“Now I’m done,” Kara said and dusted her hands off looking like a magician that wanted to prove that they did in fact have nothing up their sleeve. She sighed and ran a hand through her hair. “Sorry if I’m a little testy,” she said. “I think I’m just hungry.” As if on cue, her stomach rumbled loudly, sounding even more so in the stillness of the mountain.   
  
Shifting the bags in her arms, Lena bent low trying to grab the one she had set down. “I forgot your list,” Lena admitted, thinking it best to rip that bandaid off sooner rather than later.    
  
“I know.” Kara slung her jacket on and reached down to snatch the bag up off the ground. “I saw that you left it on the coffee table.”

“I tried calling,” Lena said, still in the process of pushing the mental image of Kara ripping a log in two from her mind.    
  
“Oh… I was talking to Alex. That’s why. You did get  _ food  _ though, right?”   
  
“ _ Oh,  _ you wanted food?” Lena snarked. She might have continued to play dumb for a while longer if the peace between them wasn’t so fragile or if Kara didn’t look quite so panicked at the idea that Lena had actually come back to the cabin without any food. “I’m hungry too,” She really was. Normally, breakfast was something she could take or leave but the small meal she had on the plane was ages ago and she had done a lot more physical activity than she normally got up to on a weekday. 

The blast of warmth from the cabin when Kara opened the door for them felt wonderful and Lena was seized with the sudden urge to drop the groceries on the table, find the bag with the kale chips and dive into that postage-stamp-sized bed of hers and crawl under the covers and not come out for a few hours. She might have if Kara didn’t set her bag down right beside the door, rifled through it, and zipped her jacket back up.   
  
“I can go grab the rest of the groceries if you give me your keys.” She held out her hand expectantly and wiped at her brow again.

“There’s a lot.” Lena made a face, setting her bags down next to Kara’s. “I forgot that I’d have to carry them up most of the way.”   
  
“I can make two trips,”   
  
“ _ Or _ , we can make one.” Lena checked her bags before she set them down that she had nothing in them that would melt and didn’t wait for Kara to answer before she stepped back outside, “Unless you’d rather not spend any more time than you have to with me…”    
  
“Lena…” Kara started, her tone softening. “I don’t… One trip makes the most sense,” she finished. 

The silence that Lena had enjoyed so much on the way up the mountain seemed close to unbearable on the way down it with Kara. The two didn’t talk, both of them walking single file down the trail that Lena had made on her way down earlier that morning. 

Lena still hadn’t made up her mind about whether or not to stay or not but she had bought more than a few things that she knew Kara wouldn’t eat even if she was close to starving. The kale chips for one but there was an entire bag in the car that was filled to the brim with food that Lena had picked out specifically for herself, so what did that mean? Was she really staying?   
  
“I almost left for the airport while you were shopping.”   
  
“You what?” Lena asked. They had gone so long without talking that Lena wasn’t expecting Kara to say anything the rest of the trip.   
  
“I said that I almost left for the airport when you went shopping,” she said a little louder, turning around briefly. Her scarf was once again wrapped around the lower half of her face.    
  
“You hate me that much?” Lena asked, her tone conversational, desperately trying to convince herself that she didn’t care either way how Kara answered.    
  
“No, Lena.” She shook her head and she once again chanced a look back, nearly slipping on a hidden patch of ice on the path for her trouble. “I could never  _ hate  _ you, but this wasn’t what I had in mind when I came up here.”   
  
_ Join the club,  _ Lena thought.   
  
“That’s why I was on the phone with Alex. I was talking it over with her. Maybe if she wasn’t so insistent that I go over to Sam’s for Christmas then I might have actually considered it.” She shrugged halfheartedly. “Obviously I didn’t go.”    
  
“What did you have in mind coming up here?” Lena asked. Her gaze that had been ventured on Kara’s back fixed at a point just over her shoulder where she could  _ just  _ make out both of their vehicles, both of them already covered in a dusting of snow as fine as wedding-lace. She dug her hand into her jacket pocket for her keys, fumbled with them, and ran a thumb over the key fob. She heard the click of the doors unlocking and stashed it back inside her pocket.    
  
“Other than get away for Christmas?” Kara shrugged. “Not much beyond that.” She opened the backseat door of Lena’s rental car, grabbed the two largest grocery bags inside, and lifted them up. She spied the frozen bag of potstickers poking out the top of the bag and flashed Lena a smile that she had missed dearly. “You’re one for fifteen so far,” she said. “My list,” she clarified.   
  
“Let’s wait until we get back to the cabin to see if I pass or fail,” Lena said, sidestepping past Kara to grab the two remaining bags, their heavy coats making the fit a lot snugger than it would have normally been. She might have drawn Kara’s attention to the snow simply by pointing up at the sky but she didn’t need to. The snow that had tapered off to a very weak flurry had picked up steam again and the snow that was falling was heavy and wet.    
  
Again, the trek back up to the cabin was unpleasant and made even more so by how penetrating the cold seemed to get. Lena could feel it in her bones and with how the wind seemed to know just how to blow to send snow blowing against the few unprotected parts of her body it was no wonder. 

“I considered it too,” Lena admitted. “Leaving for the airport.”   
  
“Ahh,” Kara said as if some long-held mystery finally made sense. “So you hate  _ me  _ that much. Leave me to starve alone in a cabin that I had no idea I was part-owner of. That’s cold, Lena.”    


“I was going to come back with the food, obviously.” Lena swung her hip against the car door to shut it and kept her head low, wishing she had tugged her hat a bit more snug around her ears. “And I don’t hate you, Kara…”  _ Quite the opposite,  _ she thought glumly.    
  
“Well,” Kara said, her voice strong and clear even over the wind that was beginning to blow around them more earnestly. “That’s good to know…”   
  
_ How could you not know? _

“I think you bought more than enough,” Kara said, picking up her pace despite the snow. “You act like we’re going to be snowed in through Christmas.”   


* * *

  
  
Getting snowed in had never once crossed Lena’s mind, not even when she trekked up the path to the cabin in full dark the day before, but with how hard it had begun to snow, she wondered if that might have been a mistake. 

They had made good time booking it back to the cabin. Spurred on by the snow that seemed to pile up far too fast and the bitter wind that nipped at their heels they had walked silently back to the cabin and remained that way for the rest of the day.   
  
Both of them had been too tired to cook anything and instead had simply retired to spots close to the fire with a number of snacks piled up between them. To Lena, they were a line in the sand that neither seemed willing to cross and before too long Kara had returned to the loft without a word and Lena had remained in her chair by the fire.

The closest the two had to any meaningful interaction was when Lena had gone to the kitchen to make herself a cup of coffee and had out of habit made Kara a cup of tea.    
  
Staring at the two steaming mugs in front of her looking dumbstruck. She hadn’t meant to make Kara a cup of tea, hadn’t even asked her if she  _ wanted  _ one but here it was. She considered dumping it down the sink and pretending it had never happened but that seemed far too petty.  _ If she doesn’t want it she doesn’t need to drink it,  _ Lena reasoned. 

Walking carefully so not to spill she set her cup of coffee down first on the small table by the chair she had been curled up in for the past hour and ascended the stairs for the first time since arriving at the cabin. When she reached the top she tapped her knuckles on the banister, loud enough to get Kara’s attention.    
  
“Hi,” Kara said cautiously, setting her book aside without bothering to sandwich a bookmark between the pages before doing so. She had changed back into her floral pajamas and with her hair down it looked like she was ready for bed, even though it wasn’t any later than six or so.    
  
“I made you a cup of tea,” Lena said and set it down beside the bed, taking a step back towards the stairs. “I bought some tea while I was shopping so it’s not even stale.” The corners of her mouth rose briefly into a weak smile and Lena took another tiny step back.    
  
“You spoil me,” Kara said. She scooted her way to the edge of the bed and picked up the saucer the cup rested in, jittering as she stood up. “Thank you, Lena.” She took a hesitant sip and broke out into a very toothy grin. “This is great,” she said and raised her cup as if toasting Lena.    
  
“It’s just tea,” Lena said modestly, taking a step down the stairs but looking pleased nevertheless. “If you want to come down,” Lena offered. “Just because you own half the cabin doesn’t mean you have to take that quite so literally.”   
  
Kara laughed. “Isn’t that how they do that on TV?”   
  
Lena stopped on the stair she was on, turned back towards Kara, and shrugged. “I think they split everything down the middle with masking tape. You didn’t have that on your grocery list, did you?”   
  
“What would that have mattered?” Kara asked, smirking. She took another sip of her tea and drummed her fingers along the side of her cup before she stood up and followed Lena down the stairs.

“It’s really coming down,” Kara said. The windows facing the front of the cabin were almost completely obscured by snow and she pressed her nose to it to get a glimpse outside. She let out a low whistle and shook her head. “Tis the season, I guess.”   
  
“Mmm. Surprised that one hasn’t been slapped on a greeting card.” Lena took a sip of her coffee and instead of sinking back into her recently vacated chair joined Kara at the window. “You always loved a white Christmas…”   
  
“Mmm,” Kara said noncommittally. She took another sip of her tea, breathed on the window, and rubbed at it with her open palm, making it a little easier to see out of. “Eliza and Jeremiah went to Hawaii for Christmas.” She shook her head quickly as if she had just eaten something incredibly bitter and let out a big enough sigh that it fogged up the window again.    
  
“Your parents went Hawaiian? The horror,” Lena said, trying not to sound too amused with herself.    
  
“Christmas on a beach…” Kara shook her head. “Not my scene.”    
  
“Is  _ this  _ a better scene?”Lena asked. As though the weather wanted to better prove the point Lena was trying to make, the wind blew hard enough to rattle the window, snow obscuring their view outside.    
  
“Beats palm trees,” Kara said dismissively, meandering over to the couch and stretching out there, setting her cup of tea precariously on one of the arms. “But look who I’m talking to. You spent Christmas in Maui, one year.” She clucked her tongue, staring up at the ceiling with a smile on her face.    
  
“That was more to put more distance between me and my mother over Christmas. And I’ll take palm trees and beaches over her glowering at me from across that obnoxiously long table at the mansion.” Lena did a very brief imitation of her mother, hunching over and looking rather birdlike as she glowered at Kara over the top of her coffee mug.   
  
“Now who looks like an ax murderer?”   
  
Lena pointed at herself, pretending to look shocked, and held up her hands like she was preparing to surrender. “There’s plenty of snow in National City… Could have spent it there. Why didn’t you?”   
  
Kara shrugged her shoulders, still looking up at the ceiling. “I told you,” she said. “Sam accused me of being a Grinch and therefore, I returned to my rightful home, Mount Crumpit.”   
  
“I think it’s pronounced Norquay,” Lena teased. Her grin fell away and she fell into the chair she had spent most of the afternoon curled up in. “Don’t know where Sam gets off calling you a Grinch…”   
  
Kara waved her hand out and turned over on her side to look at Lena. “No,” she said. “I was kind of being a Grinch. Sam and Alex have been trying to get me to spend Christmas with them and Ruby for weeks now.” She shrugged again, brushing some hair that had fallen in her face out of the way. She stared at Lena a moment, long enough for some color to work itself into her pale cheeks before she spoke again. “They were both bending over backward for me and I just wasn’t in the mood.”

“Sam didn’t try sneaking a tree into your apartment while you were out, did she?”   
  
“What?” Kara asked, eyebrows so high that they disappeared past her bangs.   
  
“Nothing.” Lena shook her head, saw the wry smile on Kara’s face starting to fade like the guttering flame of a candle, and relented. “Sam kept putting a Christmas tree in the corner of my office.” She pointed to the opposite corner of the room to give Kara a better idea of where exactly she was talking about. “I had Jess throw the first one out and I came in the next morning and found a bigger one sitting there instead. I threw in the towel after that.”   


Kara burst out into a fit of laughter that she stifled with one of the pillows on the couch. “You didn’t want your office to turn into Rockefeller Center?”   
  
“Bingo,” Lena said and shot a finger gun in her direction. “If anyone could find a way to do it, it would be Sam.” There was a reason that she had risen through the L-Corp ranks so steadily and it had nothing to do with their friendship. She was not only highly skilled but had an uncanny ability to accomplish whatever she set out to do. On top of her stellar work at L-Corp, she was raising a wonderful daughter and navigating her relationship with Alex without falling prey to any of the pitfalls that had hindered her and Kara… Lena envied her for that.   
  
“I didn’t get a tree this year,” Kara admitted, looking as if she had surprised even herself. “Just lucky that I didn’t give Sam a key to my place…”   
  
Lena picked up her mug and drank what little coffee remained. “Her and Alex are together now, they might be there right now.”    
  
“Maybe I’ll never go home,” Kara said and rolled onto her back, looking up at the ceiling.    
  
“I don’t think I bought enough food for you to do that…”   
  
Kara chuckled, nodding to herself, still staring up at the ceiling.   
  
“Why didn’t you get a tree this year, Kara? You drug me around to five different lots before you finally found one good enough for us…” The realization of what she had just said hit Lena like a breaker and she very nearly clapped a hand over her mouth to keep anything else  _ verboten  _ from spilling out. They had both given their relationship an incredibly wide berth and had slowly begun to come to terms with being in close quarters with one another until Lena had broken the silent terms of their agreement.    
  
“I just…” Kara started, eyes closed tight. “I think I’m going to go up and finish that chapter of my book.” She reached for her cup, drained it in one swallow, and set it down noisily on the saucer. “Thank you though, for the tea and the food and everything else,” she said, starting to babble.    
  
“I still forgot your list,” Lena reminded her.  _ No need to be that thankful.  _   
  
Kara had already started for the stairs and paused with her foot on the first step. “You still got everything I put on it,” she said. “You should have probably bought a lotto ticket while you were there. Well… Look who I’m talking to.” She pointed back at Lena without turning around and headed back up the stairs. Lena watched her go, part of her wishing that Kara would turn around.   
  
_ I still know you… I never forgot… _ _  
_

* * *

  
For another hour or so, Lena sat up feeding the fire and playing over her and Kara’s last conversation in her head before she had finally decided to stop torturing herself and padded to her own bed. After boarding school and countless business trips around the world, Lena never had any trouble sleeping wherever she laid her head. It was a skill that most seasoned travelers picked up sooner or later and despite her mind overflowing with a heady concoction of regrets and hurt, she still drifted off without much trouble.    
  
Lena had fallen asleep cocooned in her blankets warm and toasty. Lena woke up freezing and with the vague sensation that someone was pinching her arm. Someone  _ was  _ pinching her arm.    
  
“What the hell, Kara?”    
  
“The fire went out,” she said without preamble.    
  
“I could have worked that out myself,” Lena said irritably. She tried to draw the blankets around her more securely and only succeeded in exposing her feet to the cold air. “You pinched me!” Lena added, eyes flashing in the dark.    
  
“I had to,” Kara said, her arms drawn up and crossed tightly over her chest. “I tried shaking you awake and I know how heavy of a sleeper you are…”   
  
“How did the fire go out?” Lena asked, still not ready to actually get out of bed even though it felt like she was laying on a block of ice.    
  
“No wood,” she said. “Did you not throw one on before you went to bed?”   
  
Had she? Lena couldn’t remember. She had definitely  _ thought  _ about it but then what happened? “I thought I did,” Lena said, hating how unsure of herself she sounded. It was the go-to defense for the forgetful and the lazy. “I didn’t,” she said, covering her face with her pillow, wanting to scream into it. " Did you start another fire or did you come here to tell me first?” Lena blinked, her eyes already adjusting to the dark. She could make out Kara’s familiar form in the darkness pace next to her bedside like a woman traipsing back and forth along a widow’s walk.

“I did, but—”   
  
“But?” Lena asked, sitting up in bed.    
  
“The fire’s been out for a while…”   
  
Lena nodded impatiently, rubbing sleep from her eyes. “We’ve firmly established that this is all my fault. If we could just move past it…”

“It’s going to take a while to actually warm up the cabin. Do you remember how long it took when you first got here?”   
  
“I don’t know for sure, I fell asleep but you got here four or five hours after me… Couldn’t be any longer than that,” Lena reasoned.   
  
“Mmm,” Kara hummed, still pacing. “Well, we can’t sleep like this, obviously.” She shivered and looked as if she were debating climbing into Lena’s bed. “This is smaller than my bed,” Kara said, sounding shocked.   
  
“I remember,” Lena said, too cold and cranky to tiptoe around the fact that they did in fact used to date. She still remembered vividly the night that the two had tried sleeping on it together and how she had nearly given Kara a black eye when she had elbowed her in the face while they slept.   
  
“Well, come on,” Kara said, gesturing for Lena to get up.    
  
“Come on what?”   
  
“I can’t fit in there with you.”   
  
“Yes, well spotted,” Lena said, drawing up the blankets around her like a shawl trying to trap what little heat still remained in her body.   
  
“So we need to go upstairs.”   
  
“I’m fine,” Lena said hurriedly, finally understanding what Kara was getting at.    
  
“I don’t think we’ll freeze to death Lena either way but I don’t really want to find out and we both can’t sleep next to the fire.” Even cold and dealing with a less than cooperative Lena hadn’t robbed Kara of that gentle patience that she seemed to have an endless supply of but she did give Lena’s arm a firm tug to get her out of bed.    
  
“Kara... “   
  
“Don’t make me carry you up the stairs, Lena,” she pleaded.    
  
Eyes wide, Lena let Kara tug her up onto her feet and listened to her chest, thumping noisily against her chest. She followed after Kara in a silent procession still looking for some kind of out. Hope began to run out when she took the first few steps up to the loft and disappeared completely when Kara gave her a tiny push on the small of her back when she approached the bed.   
  
“I like to be on the left side,” Kara said as if Lena needed reminding.    
  
“Kara, this is—”   
  
“In,” Kara insisted, shivering a little.

Lena climbed in and actually had room to move about without fear of sliding out the other side. Kara’s sheets were just as cold as hers were and she turned immediately to glower at Kara with her best ‘you did this to me look’ until she remembered that the root of the problem stemmed from her not tending the fire correctly and let it slide off her face.

Kara slid in beside her a moment later, lingering near the edge of the bed before she slid closer so that their arms were touching. I can see my breath,” she said, exhaling loudly to prove her point.    
  
Lena was just about to retort something snarky back when she felt Kara slide up against her. “Kara…”   
  
“It doesn’t do much good if we just lay next to each other.” She snaked her arm partway around Lena’s waist before she paused. “Do you still like being the little spoon?”   
  
_ Who doesn’t like being the little spoon?  _ Lena wondered. Wild horses wouldn’t have been able to coax that confession out of her, however. Not that Kara waited for her answer.    
  
“I am bigger,” she reasoned, snuggling up close so that she was pressed tightly against Lena’s back, one of her legs tangling with Lena’s in a bid to close as much distance between the two of them as possible. 

“Kara…”    
  
“I know, I know, my feet are freezing, but so are yours,” she said, face so close to Lena’s ear that she could feel her breath tickling her whenever Kara spoke, “If we stay like this awhile we should be fine.”   
  
_ If we stay like this I might die from embarrassment.  _ _  
_ _  
_ “You really should have put a log on the fire,” Kara scolded gently.    
  
“No arguments from me,” Lena said, not thinking at all about the cold.

“Can I?” Kara cleared her throat. “Do you mind if I put my arm here?”   
  
“Where?”   
  
“Here,” Kara said softly and let her arm drift up higher from Lena’s waist until it was wrapped tentatively around her stomach. “It’s just more comfortable,” she said. “It’s how we…” She trailed off, face pressed against the back of Lena’s neck.   
  
“If it will help you sleep,” Lena said as casually as she could when her heart seemed to be on the verge of beating right out of her chest. She felt Kara loop an arm gently around her side, could feel Kara's bicep bulge ever so slightly against her ribs, and was amazed when she didn't melt into a puddle right there. The image of Kara chopping wood began to play on repeat in her mind's eye and every time that Lena tried to force it out, she found herself met with more and more resistance.  
  
"This is a little better, right?" Kara whispered in her ear, sending a shiver racing down Lena's spine.  
  
"Marginally," Lena whispered.  
  
"Still cold? You really aren't built for this kind of weather," Kara tutted. She snuggled even closer against Lena, holding onto her tight, the hand wrapped around her stomach sliding up just enough that Kara's thumb brushed against her breasts. "Sorry," Kara muttered, her hand sliding away as if she had just touched something extremely hot.  
  
"At least buy me dinner first," Lena snarked, trying to lighten the mood a bit and draw attention from the heat that she felt was radiating off her face in waves.  
  
"Doing anything tomorrow?" Kara asked, this time not content to go down without firing off a shot of her own.  
  
"If we make it through tonight? I'll buy you dinner. You know, for almost making us freeze to death. Least I can do."  
  
"Not all your fault," Kara admitted. "I could have popped down to check. "I just..."  Kara fell silent for so long that Lena thought that might simply be the end of their conversation. "Missed you," she whispered into the darkness, her mouth so close to Lena's neck that she was afraid that if she moved that she would feel Kara's lips against it. "Missed this." Kara sniffled and held on tighter. "And I'm cold," she finished.  
  
"Ditto," Lena whispered. She felt Kara's grip on her solidify and she finally allowed herself to relax into the embrace. Gathering up what little courage she could scrape together, Lena let her hand very carefully slide over Kara's, their fingers interlacing while Lena guided Kara's hand a bit higher up. "Missed you so much," Lena choked out, not trusting herself to elaborate on just how much she had missed Kara. There were poems Lena could write on the subject, even a monograph or two if the mood was right. But for now, that would need to suffice.  
  
She couldn't shake the feeling that the two were not just opening Pandora's box but shaking it and tossing it against the wall, but when she felt Kara's hand inch higher and settle over her chest she couldn't find it in herself to care in the slightest.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the lovely comments last chapter, it means more than you probably know! This was supposed to come out _before_ Christmas. Look how good I am at keeping to a schedule. Pay no attention to the other WIP's behind the curtain. Whether or not you celebrate Christmas I hope your holiday was a wonderful one! Looking to be two more chapters but we'll see. 
> 
> [Tumblr](https://inkedroplets.tumblr.com/)


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